Phone-tapping Phone-tapping of CND (Observer 9 December 1984; Daily Telegraph 10 December.) Telegraph piece includes claim that people phoning CND office have been connected to Ministry of Defence and local police stations. Police Review (15 February 1985) quotes “a source inside British Telecom” on the question of warrants for taps: ‘When it is a police … Read more
[…] so much the story of Nagell as materials for a study of him. The book’s 800-odd pages leave nothing out. A massive work. Nagell, a CIA contract agent, went into an El Paso bank in September 1963, fired a couple of shots into a wall, and got himself intentionally arrested — thus ensuring he […]
Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a page!) … Read more
American Friends: the Anti-CND Groups Steve Dorril In a memo leaked to the Washington Post (9th May 1982) on opposition to President Reagan’s defence policy, Eugene V. Rostow, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, stated “there is participation on an increasing scale in the US of three groups whose potential impact should be … Read more
[…] of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, added the following information on LFI. (2) The Director of Labour Friends of Israel is David Mercer, former research assistant and electoral agent for Gwyneth Dunwoody, ‘life president’ of LFI. The parliamentary register of Members’ interests shows that recent visitors who have had flights and accommodation paid by Labour […]
Tony Geraghty Harper Collins, London 1998, £19.99 Before dawn one Thursday in December 1998 a team of six Ministry of Defence police raided the home of the writer and journalist, Tony Geraghty. After seven hours, they left taking his computer, modem, disks and work in progress, having charged him under Section V of the Official […]
Iraqi documents Iraq on the Record (<http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord>) is a searchable collection of over 200 specific misleading statements made by Bush administration officials about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq. The collection would be even larger if it also included statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. However, if a statement was ‘…an accurate reflection of … Read more
Introduction Greenwood Press in the USA have just published Anthony Frewin’s’ The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated Film, TV and Videography, 1963-1992 (ISBN 0-313-28982-4). The book is divided into 12 chapters covering such subjects as Oswald in New Orleans, Dealey Plaza (some 40 entries, no less), Dallas post-assassination, TV programs and compilations, documentaries, … Read more
[…] with an alleged enormous Soviet disinformation offensive against the West. In this book Crozier reworks in much greater detail some of the sections of his memoir, Free Agent, describing three lawsuits in which he was involved which concerned alleged Soviet influence in Der Spiegel, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in the United States, […]
[…] largish chunk of their subject matter has, in effect, been covertly controlled by the British state. Which is more or less what Brian Crozier was telling us in his memoir, Free Agent, wasn’t it? Notes See Tom Easton’s piece in Lobster 36. Dodds-Parker was also busy in the 1960s peddling smear stories about Harold Wilson.
